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Written Question
Housing: Leicester East
Wednesday 31st January 2024

Asked by: Claudia Webbe (Independent - Leicester East)

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will have discussions with Leicester City Council on steps it is taking to reduce damp and mould in low income households in Leicester East constituency.

Answered by Jacob Young - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)

Following the tragic death of Awaab Ishak, the Secretary of State wrote to all providers of social housing and to all local authority chief executives, including Leicester City Council. In these letters the Secretary of State set out his expectation that providers should go further than the letter of the Decent Homes Standard, and have particular regard to damp and mould, and that local authorities should take action to resolve poor housing conditions in their area.

All landlords have legal obligations to remedy disrepair, ensure homes are fit for human habitation and to ensure that homes are free of health and safety hazards at the most dangerous ‘category 1’ level. This includes damp and mould. As a registered provider of social housing, Leicester City Council is also required to ensure its homes meet the Decent Homes Standard.


Written Question
Housing: Leicester East
Wednesday 17th January 2024

Asked by: Claudia Webbe (Independent - Leicester East)

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether his Department offers (a) financial and (b) other support to (i) local authorities and (ii) housing associations to help (A) mitigate overcrowding and (B) support vulnerable households in Leicester East constituency.

Answered by Jacob Young - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)

Data on the availability of new homes is not available at constituency level.

Local councils are responsible for allocating housing through local schemes, and as such, are best placed to manage the demand for social housing.

Local councils are responsible for considering what constitutes a ‘suitable’ space for a household to live in within our framework for defining overcrowding.

We are committed to reducing overcrowding by increasing the supply of affordable housing and enabling councils and other social landlords to make better use of their existing stock.

Our £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme will deliver thousands of affordable homes for both rent and to buy right across the country.

In Leicester, between 2010 and 2023, 2,800 affordable homes have been delivered.


Written Question
Affordable Housing: Leicester East
Wednesday 17th January 2024

Asked by: Claudia Webbe (Independent - Leicester East)

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what recent estimate he has made of available housing in Leicester East constituency; and what steps his Department is taking to increase the supply of affordable housing (a) in Leicester East constituency and (b) nationally.

Answered by Jacob Young - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)

Data on the availability of new homes is not available at constituency level.

Local councils are responsible for allocating housing through local schemes, and as such, are best placed to manage the demand for social housing.

Local councils are responsible for considering what constitutes a ‘suitable’ space for a household to live in within our framework for defining overcrowding.

We are committed to reducing overcrowding by increasing the supply of affordable housing and enabling councils and other social landlords to make better use of their existing stock.

Our £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme will deliver thousands of affordable homes for both rent and to buy right across the country.

In Leicester, between 2010 and 2023, 2,800 affordable homes have been delivered.


Written Question
Housing: Leicester East
Wednesday 17th January 2024

Asked by: Claudia Webbe (Independent - Leicester East)

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department has taken to tackle overcrowding in Leicester East constituency.

Answered by Jacob Young - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)

Data on the availability of new homes is not available at constituency level.

Local councils are responsible for allocating housing through local schemes, and as such, are best placed to manage the demand for social housing.

Local councils are responsible for considering what constitutes a ‘suitable’ space for a household to live in within our framework for defining overcrowding.

We are committed to reducing overcrowding by increasing the supply of affordable housing and enabling councils and other social landlords to make better use of their existing stock.

Our £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme will deliver thousands of affordable homes for both rent and to buy right across the country.

In Leicester, between 2010 and 2023, 2,800 affordable homes have been delivered.


Written Question
Private Rented Housing: Discrimination
Wednesday 15th November 2023

Asked by: Claudia Webbe (Independent - Leicester East)

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of the Renters (Reform) Bill on helping prevent discriminatory practices against people who are (a) older, (b) in receipt of Housing Benefit and (c) in receipt of other benefits in the private rented sector.

Answered by Jacob Young - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)

We are committed to outlawing unacceptable discriminatory blanket ban practices against renters who receive benefits in the private rented sector – while ensuring that landlords retain the final say on who they let their property to.

The Government tabled amendments to the Renters (Reform) Bill on 15 November to make it illegal for landlords and agents to have blanket bans on renting to people who receive benefits or who have children.


Written Question
Private Rented Housing: Standards
Thursday 26th October 2023

Asked by: Claudia Webbe (Independent - Leicester East)

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether his Department plans to introduce a decent homes standard to the private rented sector.

Answered by Rachel Maclean

As we have set out previously, we will bring this forward as soon as parliamentary time allows.


Written Question
Evictions
Thursday 26th October 2023

Asked by: Claudia Webbe (Independent - Leicester East)

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether his Department plans to increase the length of the period at the start of a tenancy in which the landlord does not have a guaranteed right to possession from six months to two years.

Answered by Rachel Maclean

The Renters (Reform) Bill received its second reading on Monday 23 October.

Tenants will have much more security in the new system. Unlike with Section 21, landlords will always need a reason to evict a tenant and be prepared to evidence that reason in court.  Six months strike the right balance between improving security for tenants and ensuring landlords continue to feel confident in the market.


Written Question
Private Rented Housing: Discrimination
Thursday 26th October 2023

Asked by: Claudia Webbe (Independent - Leicester East)

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether his Department plans to use the Renters (Reform) Bill to help tackle discriminatory practices against (a) older people, (b) people in receipt of Housing Benefit and (c) people in receipt of other benefits in the private rented sector.

Answered by Rachel Maclean

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.


Written Question
Private Rented Housing: Evictions
Thursday 20th July 2023

Asked by: Claudia Webbe (Independent - Leicester East)

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what recent progress his Department has made on ending no fault evictions in the private rented sector.

Answered by Rachel Maclean

I refer the Hon. Member to the answer I gave to Question UIN 191614 on 6 July 2023.

We remain committed to ending rough sleeping and tackling homelessness. We have given councils over £2 billion over three years to help them tackle homelessness and rough sleeping, targeted to areas where it is needed most. In Leicester, this includes £2,383,257 funding through the Homelessness Prevention Grant for 2023/24 and 2024/25.


Written Question
Housing: Leicester East
Thursday 20th July 2023

Asked by: Claudia Webbe (Independent - Leicester East)

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether his Department plans to take steps to help support the building of homes in Leicester to help tackle overcrowding in Leicester East constituency.

Answered by Rachel Maclean

The provision of affordable housing is part of the Government's plan to build more homes and provide aspiring homeowners with a step onto the housing ladder. Our £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme will deliver thousands of affordable homes for both rent and to buy right across the country. We would encourage Local Authorities in Leicester to work with social housing providers to bid into the Affordable Homes Programme.

The Levelling Up White Paper committed to increasing the supply of social rented homes and a large number of the new homes delivered through our Affordable Homes Programme will be for social rent.

Since 2010, we have delivered over 659,500 new affordable homes, including over 468,700 affordable homes for rent, of which over 166,300 homes for social rent. Of these over 2,700 have been delivered in Leicester.